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Song Of The Day 6/1/2013: Rainbo - "John You Went Too Far This Time"

Answer Songs Week: In 1968 John Lennon and Yoko Ono released Unfinished Music No. 1: Two Virgins,an experimental album using a lot of tape loops, found sounds, instrumental fragments and grapefruit. I mean, it was partially inspired by Ono's conceptual book Grapefruit. Who knows, perhaps there was some grapefruit flying around the studio. It certainly wouldn't surprise me. Forget it. But Two Virgins was notable for John and Yoko's cover art, which featured them standing up fully naked. Frontal on one side, posterior on the other side. This caused some controversy. EMI wouldn't distribute the album, so Apple went through another distributor who were only too happy to have a Beatles-related catalog item on their sale sheet. As for how successful it was... I think it sold more copies than Kevin Federline's album. But I'm just guessing.

The Two Virgins controversy prompted Greenwich Village folksinger Rainbo to record "John You Went Too Far This Time" in 1969 for Roulette Records. It's couched as a breakup tale, looking back on the times when John would whisk her off to a "sunlight submarine" and "trips with Lucy." The final verse has the coyly funny line "I love the things you showed me up 'til now, John." You and me both, sweetheart.

Things didn't work out for Rainbo in the music industry, so she dropped the pseudonym and reverted to her real name, which was Sissy Spacek. She became a very good actress, especially in movies like Badlands in which she went on a killing spree, and Carrie in which she used telekinesis to kill almost her entire high school, her mother and herself. Speaking of going too far.